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helium

helium

Some scientists are sounding the alarm about the wastefulness of using helium -- a rare, non-renewable gas -- to fill party balloons. Why? As an essential resource in technologies such as medical imaging, rocket engines, and surveillance devices, it turns out that helium does a lot more than give our balloons a lift. And despite being the second most abundant element in the universe, most of our supply in the Earth’s atmosphere simply floats off into space and is lost.

Moses Chan, an Evan Pugh Professor of Physics at Penn State, testified before the U.S. Senate on whether the sell-off of the nation's helium reserve has an adverse effect on the nation's scientific, technical, biomedical and national-security users of helium. Chan, a member of the National Academy of Sciences / National Research Council (NAS/NRC) Committee on Understanding the Impact of Selling the Helium Reserve, gave his testimony to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on May 10.

"Imagine you have an orchestra together, but everyone is playing their own tune, until they begin to follow a conductor. In a normal solid, every atom has its own behavior until very close to absolute zero. Then quantum mechanics takes over and dictates everyone to play the same tune."